Web hosting has become very cheap and affordable these days thanks to faster and cheaper server hardware and falling bandwidth costs. For this reason, it is now possible to get very high quality hosting services as just a few dollars every month. However, it should be kept in mind that if something is cheap, it is cheap for a reason. Disk space and bandwidth shouldn’t be the only criteria when buying in a hosting plan. Customer support is equally important.
Shared hosting plans are usually very cheap. You can get good shared hosting plans for as low as $3-5/month. However, better plans usually cost $10 or more per month. If you have many websites, it is usually a good idea to go for bigger plans. You can also go for a reseller plan and host websites for others. If you do this properly, it can be a good secondary source of income.
Windows hosting usually costs more when compared to Linux hosting. This is mainly because Windows is not free and it costs money in the form of licensing fees. On the other hand, Linux is an open source application and so there are no licensing fees involved. If your website consists of simple static HTML pages, you can opt for either Windows or Linux hosting. Either should be good enough.
If you want to run specific scripts or web applications, you have to purchase a hosting plan that has support for the technologies involved. For instance, if you want to create a WordPress blog, you need a hosting plan which supports PHP and MySQL. Before buying a hosting plan, ensure that it meets all of your requirements.
If your website is very big and gets huge amounts of traffic (millions of visitors per month), it is a good idea to go for a dedicated server. A dedicated server is also a good option, if your site has large number of videos or mp3 files or runs on a script that is cpu/memory intensive. Dedicated servers cost around $100/month. However, you can find them for lower prices also. If you are not proficient with computers, it is always a good idea to go for managed solutions. For a little more, you will get more support from your hosting company.
